November 17, 2020

Anna Murray 

The FBI reported on November 16 that the US has recorded the highest hate crimes in 2019 and murders motivated by hate were outnumbered the level more than a decade.

In 2019, only 2,172 law enforcement agencies out of 15,000 reported their hate crime data to the FBI. Apparently, it consisted of a small number of police agencies which submitted hate crime data to the Bureau. However, the Justice Department officials still found anti-Hispanic hate crimes rose to 527 in 2019 from 485 in 2018. The data showed hate crimes targeting African Americans in 2019 was 1,930, slightly fewer than 1,943 in 2018. Nevertheless, data showed about a 7% increase in religion-related hate crimes, with 953 crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions in 2019 versus 835 in 2018.

For years critics have discredited that the FBI’s data were inconclusive where were reported from a small portion of police agencies across the US. Earlier on October 29, the UCLA American Indian Studies Center announced the university has launched an interactive map to track hate crimes in the US. According to UCLA’s map, which collected hate crime dating from January 2017 to October 2020 in each state. Moreover, UCLA’s data were broken down into the number of hate crimes against victims regarding race, religion, and sexual identity. The UCLA’s data were echoed with the FBI’s record, showing a steady increase in hate crimes in recent years.

Photo:Webshot.